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Archive for the ‘audience-is-students’ Category
How a student submits prior content from “My content” into a Moodle Kaltura video assignment
2013/11/18
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- Go to your video assignment in Moodle:
. - Click “Add media submission”:
- Jump through the hoops:
- switch to “my content”
- you have to click the “search” button to show content, leave search filed empty to show all
- note that there may be more
- you have to select a video
- before that, you cannot click next
- confirm on the next screen
- You are done when you see this:
, but hey, better press “continue” to be safe: - On the next screen, you can review:
- Not so clear how you get out of there…
- Troubleshooting: If you run into problems, the first thing to try usually is a different web browser.
Categories: audience-is-students, e-languages, lms
kaltura, moodle, my-content
How to save your MS-Office files on SkyDrive
2013/11/18
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- Having to work on important documents from different locations – including office, classroom, and home – and getting tired of lugging thumb drives around (or worried about losing or inadvertently destroying them)?
- Use your university email and your password from last June (this one does not get force-updated every 90 days any more, you can manage it yourself).
- Upload your important files:
- Drag and drop, e.g. a PowerPoint file:
- Click the file – e.g. a Word file – to view it in your web browser.
- To edit the file , while viewing, click top menu: “Edit document”. Choose between editing it in the browser (has still some – ever fewer – limitations for complex documents)
- You will have to log in again (on a non-shared computer I prefer to choose to be “signed in automatically”).
- You have to click “Enable Editing” again, but then you are in your familiar MS-Word environment.
- No need to re-upload the file: Save and close your file, when you open it again in the web browser, it got synched automatically:
- To keep an additional local file backup, use the free MS-SkyDrive App which sets up a local copy of your MS-SkyDrive cloud storage – useful when you have to work offline (e.g. I used to travel every weekend on a plane, but needed to make good use of my travel time).
- Troubleshooting: If you run into problems, the first thing to try usually is a different web browser.
UYork.ca phonetics website for learners of English
2013/11/17
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A very usable Flash application on the IPA, covering the vowels, diacritics, diphthongs and triphthongs (displaying in linear animations – pictured above – how these more complex have to be altered over time during their production), and suprasegmentals.
Categories: audience-is-students, English, Speaking
ipa, phonetics
How to type phonetic symbols on a computer
2013/11/16
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- Web-based On-screen-keyboards (point-and-click; low learning curve, but no fast typing speed; typing into a textbox from where you can copy/paste the result into other programs):
- http://westonruter.github.com/ipa-chart/keyboard/: Sounds are systematically organized. Suitable for learners, but also good for teacher demonstrations.
- Partially based on keyboard shortcuts: http://www.ipatrainer.com/user/site/index.php?pageID=ipawriter:
- http://ipa.typeit.org/full/: Other than the English version, the full version includes non-English sounds. The interface is optimized for fast typing (sorted by keyboard key). Presumably better for teachers using a screen projector as a whiteboard.
- i2speak.com (reviewed here earlier):
- Update: Richard Ishida’s seems also impressive,
- and you can use phonetics terminology to get characters selected, like so:
- http://ipa.typeit.org/full/: Other than the English version, the full version includes non-English sounds. The interface is optimized for fast typing (sorted by keyboard key). Presumably better for teachers using a screen projector as a whiteboard.
- http://westonruter.github.com/ipa-chart/keyboard/: Sounds are systematically organized. Suitable for learners, but also good for teacher demonstrations.
- Windows-based:
- http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/resource/phonetics/: MS-Windows keyboard layout. May be good for even faster typing, if you can memorize the keyboard layout or add keyboard stickers (we unfortunately have too many languages vying for our hardware keyboard space already). Requires download & installation (may be added to the LRC keyboards during next imaging if we receive enough requests).
- http://staff.washington.edu/dmontero/IPACharmap/.
- http://sourceforge.net/projects/allchars/: If you are use to the ALT+### method of entering characters and are still on XP, this may be for you: You can generate your own keyboard shortcuts for phonetic characters.
- MS-Word:
- http://email.eva.mpg.de/~bibiko/downloads/uniqoder/uniqoder.html: Allows to select IPA-Symbols from a toolbar. Untested.
- http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/resource/phonetics/: MS-Windows keyboard layout. May be good for even faster typing, if you can memorize the keyboard layout or add keyboard stickers (we unfortunately have too many languages vying for our hardware keyboard space already). Requires download & installation (may be added to the LRC keyboards during next imaging if we receive enough requests).
- There are also always X-Sampa and CXS and ASCII-IPA: ways of writing IPA in plain ASCII messages – but yet another thing to teach novices in phonetics may be a bridge too far.
Categories: Arabic, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek (modern), Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, learning-materials, Mandarin, Operating-system, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, service-is-evaluating-learning-tools, Spanish, Speaking, Swahili, websites, Yoruba
keyboard, phonetics
How to work around “Audio init failed” when recording in MyLanguageLab
2013/11/12
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- If you see this (or similar errors):
- Try running the browser tune-up,
- check for any new software versions (you can update Java, unfortunately only for your current session on this computer)
- finally run the voice recording setup wizard to check for results.
- Suggest you do this before entering a homework assignment, since a timer may be keeping running while you troubleshoot
How to record your screen with MS-Community Clips
2013/11/06
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- During presentations, when creating demonstrations etc., it can be useful to record your screen (and your voice, if you speak into the headphone microphone). In the LRC, we have MS Community Clips pre-installed for this purpose. To start recording:
- To stop recording, follow the same steps, but in step 3 choose “stop”.
- Or forget about the menus and remember the keyboard shortcuts: WIN+ALT+R or T.
- The video will play automatically. Click stop, menu: Save, Save your recording where you need it (e.g. Desktop).
- If your teacher wants you to submit your recording, in the LRC you can drop it into the Sanako Homework window and “send” it:
How to run a microphone test before taking an ACTFL exam on languagetesting.com
2013/10/28
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- To avoid having your test recordings rejected for quality reasons (and having to take the entire test again), please run this simple microphone test OUTSIDE of languagetesting.com:
- This microphone test can be run either
- at the listening stations (see sign 433a, brown headsets) or
- (PREFERABLY) in the main classroom (see sign 434, black headsets).
- After logging in, put the headphones on. No need to re-plug anything.
- From the desktop, open Audacity
. - In Audacity, Press the red RECORD button
. - Speak into the microphone.
- Check the results:
- You should see something like this:
- Press the green PLAY button
and listen to your recording. - Does the recording look AND sound OK?
- NO: let the LRC staff at the reception desk know the computer number and switch computers.
- Yes: Save the recording using menu: File / Export / [name = number of computer].mp3 to your “my documents” folder (if your test gets rejected, you have evidence that you ran the test and that the LRC headset hardware you used was o.k.).
- You should see something like this:
- This microphone test can be run either
- You also need to run the test WITHIN languagetesting.com (which just tests for volume, not for quality).
How to shoot movies with the Canon Eos Rebel T2i– and “movie recording has been stopped automatically”
2013/10/26
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If the camera stops recording after a short while with the error “movie recording has been stopped automatically”, you most likely have an internal memory buffer overrun (there is a bar chart visible warning you off that shortly before the camera stops). This may be due to you not using a Class (6) or faster SDHC card. Try first a low level format inside the camera, or get a faster memory card. (Per the manual below, a lowering to standard HD should not help!).
Note also: The camera stops the recording when the file size has reached 4GB (3.99 in Windows – FAT32 limit). It is left as an exercise for the reader when that point in time is. May be related to the fact that this camera is primarily meant for photos, not video. I felt I had to use the lowest HD setting with my untested SD card (the one that buffer overran slightly later with the earlier SD card: 1280*720, 60fps – which produces 1GB/3 minute).
Note finally: camera might stop also due to overheating.
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